When you think about it, spring calving is quite a loose term across the country. It can run anywhere from 1 January to late-June, depending on your location, farm system and how tight your calving spread is.
There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to the optimum calving date, but matching it as close as possible to the grass-growing season on your farm will result in a lower cost, more profitable system. This is what the focus farms have been concentrating on over the last couple of years.
Minor tweaks to bulling dates can have a massive effect on the overall success of the system.
Calving too early
Post-calving, a cow’s energy demand practically doubles overnight. This is in order for her to produce sufficient levels of milk and repair her body after calving.
Calving cows too early in spring results in higher feed and bedding costs as you’re keeping cows and calves indoors until there is sufficient grass growth to get them turned out.
Effectively what you are doing here is purchasing kilos of live-weight gain from concentrate feed and high-quality silage.
If turnout to grass is more than six to eight weeks post-calving, the cow will have already hit peak milk yield and you will have missed the chance to maximise milk yield from cheap, grazed grass.
Another potential issue with this situation is that the breeding season will have commenced indoors in order to have cows calving at the same time the following year.
The problem with this is that when cows are eventually turned out to grass there will often be a 10-day to two-week break in the breeding season as the animals transition from one diet to the other. This does not lend itself to a compact calving system.
A late calf is better than no calf?
On the other hand, calving too late in spring will mean that you lose out on valuable grazing days.
Dry cows will have to be restricted prior to calving, while grass growth gets ahead of stock on the farm.
As a result, grass quality and, therefore, liveweight gain will be compromised.
Also at the tail end of the year you will be left with calves that are too light to wean and may end up housing cows and calves together.
This is not only inconvenient in terms of having another group of stock to be housed, but also results in higher feed costs in early winter.
Pull the bull
This will be the problem faced next year for anyone still with bulls among spring cows at this stage.
A cow bulled this weekend will calve in the last week of June. This calf will be no more than 190kg come mid-October.
If operating a weaned calf system, there is little opportunity to sell this animal.
Even in a spring store selling system this calf will struggle to be much more than 350kg on 1 March. These are the animals you end up grazing for an extra season – tying up acres of grassland that could be carrying more cows calving at the optimal time of year.
Therefore, it’s time to remove the bull from spring herds where they have had sufficient time to get cows in calf.
Many of the focus farms are now working a 12-week breeding period, with others hoping for 10 weeks in the coming years.
The value of scanning
Where bulls are already away from cows for a number of weeks, it is time to book a scanning date. Ideally, scanning should take place at least one month post-breeding to allow sufficient time for the embryo to be successfully implanted.
Many farms will scan every year and see it as a key tool in the overall management of the herd. Others do not scan routinely.
Last year, however, many farmers scanned to remove empty cows from the system earlier, as the fodder shortage meant that they could not afford to winter these non-productive females.
If it saved you money in the form of fodder last year, it will do the same again this year. Just because farmyards are full to the brim with fodder does not mean you should burn money feeding these females this winter.
Scanning can do much more than just identify empty cows when done correctly. Accurate scanners can tell you the approximate age of the calf in weeks and even identify any cows carrying twins, provided they are not over 14 weeks in-calf.
This can have huge benefits come springtime, as you can batch cows according to calving date and keep a closer eye on twin-bearing cows.
Scanning as early in the year as possible also gives you more options for dealing with barren cows. These include:
Wean and sell: Where empty cows are calved over 200 days (currently mid-February calved cows) and in decent condition, the best option may be to wean the calf now and sell the cow in the coming weeks. At this stage the proportion of the calf’s diet coming from its dam’s milk will be less than 20%. Therefore, it makes more sense to supplement the calf directly rather than taking it off the cow’s back now, just to have to put it back on with concentrates later in the year.Wean and graze: Weaning will nearly halve the cow’s energy demand and therefore if she gets six to eight weeks of good grass she should be fit for selling. Where grass supply is limited, 2-3kg of concentrate can be supplemented to boost liveweight gain.Take pressure off the cow: Where empty cows have younger calves that are not fit for weaning just yet, they should be treated as a separate batch of cattle. Options for taking the pressure off feeding a calf include: Forward creep-grazing the calf: this will give the calf access to the best grazing on-farm, increasing its energy intake from grass, while also reducing the amount of time the calf spends suckling the cow each day.Creep-feeding: supplementing the calf directly with concentrate will reduce the pressure on the cow to produce milk for its calf; diverting more energy to increasing her own body condition. Over the coming weeks we will bring you the scanning results from each of the focus farms. This will include a breakdown of both mature cows and heifers served. Many of the focus farms have reduced the length of the breeding period once again this year, as they try to make calving as compact as possible.
When you think about it, spring calving is quite a loose term across the country. It can run anywhere from 1 January to late-June, depending on your location, farm system and how tight your calving spread is.
There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to the optimum calving date, but matching it as close as possible to the grass-growing season on your farm will result in a lower cost, more profitable system. This is what the focus farms have been concentrating on over the last couple of years.
Minor tweaks to bulling dates can have a massive effect on the overall success of the system.
Calving too early
Post-calving, a cow’s energy demand practically doubles overnight. This is in order for her to produce sufficient levels of milk and repair her body after calving.
Calving cows too early in spring results in higher feed and bedding costs as you’re keeping cows and calves indoors until there is sufficient grass growth to get them turned out.
Effectively what you are doing here is purchasing kilos of live-weight gain from concentrate feed and high-quality silage.
If turnout to grass is more than six to eight weeks post-calving, the cow will have already hit peak milk yield and you will have missed the chance to maximise milk yield from cheap, grazed grass.
Another potential issue with this situation is that the breeding season will have commenced indoors in order to have cows calving at the same time the following year.
The problem with this is that when cows are eventually turned out to grass there will often be a 10-day to two-week break in the breeding season as the animals transition from one diet to the other. This does not lend itself to a compact calving system.
A late calf is better than no calf?
On the other hand, calving too late in spring will mean that you lose out on valuable grazing days.
Dry cows will have to be restricted prior to calving, while grass growth gets ahead of stock on the farm.
As a result, grass quality and, therefore, liveweight gain will be compromised.
Also at the tail end of the year you will be left with calves that are too light to wean and may end up housing cows and calves together.
This is not only inconvenient in terms of having another group of stock to be housed, but also results in higher feed costs in early winter.
Pull the bull
This will be the problem faced next year for anyone still with bulls among spring cows at this stage.
A cow bulled this weekend will calve in the last week of June. This calf will be no more than 190kg come mid-October.
If operating a weaned calf system, there is little opportunity to sell this animal.
Even in a spring store selling system this calf will struggle to be much more than 350kg on 1 March. These are the animals you end up grazing for an extra season – tying up acres of grassland that could be carrying more cows calving at the optimal time of year.
Therefore, it’s time to remove the bull from spring herds where they have had sufficient time to get cows in calf.
Many of the focus farms are now working a 12-week breeding period, with others hoping for 10 weeks in the coming years.
The value of scanning
Where bulls are already away from cows for a number of weeks, it is time to book a scanning date. Ideally, scanning should take place at least one month post-breeding to allow sufficient time for the embryo to be successfully implanted.
Many farms will scan every year and see it as a key tool in the overall management of the herd. Others do not scan routinely.
Last year, however, many farmers scanned to remove empty cows from the system earlier, as the fodder shortage meant that they could not afford to winter these non-productive females.
If it saved you money in the form of fodder last year, it will do the same again this year. Just because farmyards are full to the brim with fodder does not mean you should burn money feeding these females this winter.
Scanning can do much more than just identify empty cows when done correctly. Accurate scanners can tell you the approximate age of the calf in weeks and even identify any cows carrying twins, provided they are not over 14 weeks in-calf.
This can have huge benefits come springtime, as you can batch cows according to calving date and keep a closer eye on twin-bearing cows.
Scanning as early in the year as possible also gives you more options for dealing with barren cows. These include:
Wean and sell: Where empty cows are calved over 200 days (currently mid-February calved cows) and in decent condition, the best option may be to wean the calf now and sell the cow in the coming weeks. At this stage the proportion of the calf’s diet coming from its dam’s milk will be less than 20%. Therefore, it makes more sense to supplement the calf directly rather than taking it off the cow’s back now, just to have to put it back on with concentrates later in the year.Wean and graze: Weaning will nearly halve the cow’s energy demand and therefore if she gets six to eight weeks of good grass she should be fit for selling. Where grass supply is limited, 2-3kg of concentrate can be supplemented to boost liveweight gain.Take pressure off the cow: Where empty cows have younger calves that are not fit for weaning just yet, they should be treated as a separate batch of cattle. Options for taking the pressure off feeding a calf include: Forward creep-grazing the calf: this will give the calf access to the best grazing on-farm, increasing its energy intake from grass, while also reducing the amount of time the calf spends suckling the cow each day.Creep-feeding: supplementing the calf directly with concentrate will reduce the pressure on the cow to produce milk for its calf; diverting more energy to increasing her own body condition. Over the coming weeks we will bring you the scanning results from each of the focus farms. This will include a breakdown of both mature cows and heifers served. Many of the focus farms have reduced the length of the breeding period once again this year, as they try to make calving as compact as possible.
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